Jump to content

THE MC5


charlie dundar

Recommended Posts

I WAS JUST PUT ON TO THESE GUYS A YEAR AGO.THE MOTOR CITY 5 RELEASED THEIR EARLY STUFF AROUND 1967.THEY WERE A KICK ASS POWERHOUSE ROCK 'N ROLL BAND FROM THE DETROIT THAT PRETTY MUCH INVENTED THE''GARAGE ROCK''SOUND.THEY HAD HIGH ENERGY SHOWS,GREAT SONGS,AND INTERESTING POLITICS.THEY INSPIRED SUCH ACTS AS AT THE DRIVE IN.IT SEEMS HOWEVER THEY ARE PRETTY MUCH OVERLOOKED IN THE HIPPIE MUSIC HISTORY...EVEN THOUGH THEY WHERE VERY REVOLUTIONARY,AND AHEAD OF THERE TIME.IS ANYONE ON HERE FEELING THESE GUYS?I PERSONALLY LOVE THE SONG''THEHUMANBEINGLAWNMOWER''WHICH WOULD BE SICK IF IT WERE RELEASED TODAY.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This forum is supported by the 12ozProphet Shop, so go buy a shirt and help support!
This forum is brought to you by the 12ozProphet Shop.
This forum is brought to you by the 12oz Shop.

MC5 make every "popular" band round today look like pussies...they were the real fucking thing.

 

and if you ever have chance, check out Iggy Pop live...still a complete freakshow live.

Jello Biafra got all his moves from Iggy, just like Michael Jackson stole all his moves from James Brown.

 

peace,

ak

 

------------------

www.terorist.cz/magazine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

love the MC5, kept hearing their cover of 'i can only give you everything' and had to get more, how fucking good is 'kick out the jams'?...band i've been into for years, Spacemen 3, are heavily influenced by MC5, their song 'revolution' could be MC5, well recommended

REVOLUTION - PURITY - LOVE - SUICIDE - ACCURACY

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...yo ive seen old clips of those dudes, rockin out and it looked like a hardcore show, then showed the date at the bottom as 1969..i was blown away i thought it was like late punk stuff...guess 69 wasnt all about love, some doods were fucking pissed off...ive been wanting to check em out..if anyone can recommend something...i hate getting greatest hit shits...ATI def. rocks-to bad the canceled the second leg.....thanks for any info...

 

...peace...roe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

kick out he jams motherfuckers.... i dont know nearly as much about them as i should considering im from detroit... perhaps today is the day... i give you a week before you ditch that name haha... your just asking for dick riders...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by seeking innocence:

kick out he jams motherfuckers.... i dont know nearly as much about them as i should considering im from detroit... perhaps today is the day... i give you a week before you ditch that name haha... your just asking for dick riders...

JUST CAME ON TO RESPOND TO SOME STUFF IN ANOTHER THREAD REGARDING ME.SORRY,BACK TO AN ALIAS.....
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest TEARZ

whoa,

if you're just looking into them, have fun. that's a real fun band to look into. just wait until you get to all their political shit including working class revolt, marijuana legalization, and the white panthers (and no it wasn't no racist shit). hahaha. by all means do it to it....

 

------------------

i don't know what you subject to,

but i suppose it ain't a bed of roses

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

i am with seeking. as a fellow detroiter, i should know more about the mc5. they were the real deal, there is a movie out right now about them, i just camt remember the name, its a smallish indie type film. i will searchout the name and get back later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Motor City Five were head-crushingly loud, intensely self-destructive, boisterously fun, and so politically controversial the FBI tapped their phones. They are also widely credited with inspiring two of the most important rock innovations of the '70s, punk and metal. In short, they were one of the greatest rock bands that ever lived. They are also one of the most representative groups of their era, epitomizing the explosive energy and conflict of America during the Vietnam era.

 

The mid-'60s social landscape of Detroit was crucial to the formation of the MC5 and an essential part of everything the band did musically. The band's three most famous members, singer Rob Tyner and guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, were also the principal architects of the band, sons of Detroit auto workers who joined together in high school to play music inspired by the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, James Brown, free jazz, and the blues, seeking to become a rock and roll success in the hopes of avoiding the fates of their fathers. By late 1965, the group had added permanent bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson and landed a gig at Detroit's Grande Ballroom, where they spent the next two years building a devoted local following with their frenzied, high-energy, high-stakes style of live performance.

 

Sometime in 1967, the band hooked up with their notorious manager, political agitator John Sinclair, founder of radical White Panther party, an ancillary group to the Black Panther party (endorsed by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton). The band quickly became the mouthpiece for the party's views, calling for social revolution and the freedom of all oppressed peoples and pointed working the American flag into their rock and roll imagery. Consequently all the band members began to have regular legal problems. Later on Kramer learned through the Freedom of Information Act that the group's radical rhetoric had piqued the interest of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and other federal bureaucrats, who instituted a program of systematic harassment that involved tapping the band's phones and tailing its members.

 

In the midst of all this turmoil, the MC5 were playing some of the most exciting rock and roll ever known to man. In 1967 the group signed to Elektra and a year later recorded their seminal debut album, Kick Out the Jams, live at the Grande Ballroom, promptly stirring up new controversy thanks to their refusal to censor Tyner's legendary exhortation to "Kick out the jams, motherfucker!" on the title track. The album's incendiary mixture of politics, blues, feedback, and adrenaline catapulted it into the Top 40, but Elektra dropped the band. In 1969, Sinclair was apprehended with two joints in his pocket and arrested for narcotics possession; since it was his third conviction he was sentenced to ten years in jail -- thus sparking the "Free John Sinclair" movement, which culminated in a spectacular benefit concert in Ann Arbor in 1971 that led the Michigan Supreme Court to overturn Sinclair's sentence three days later.

 

Without their manager and mentor, the MC5 began to lose their way, soon abandoning the precepts of the White Panther party and falling deep into the throes of drug addiction. They did record a second great album, Back in the U.S.A., in 1970, this time on Atlantic. It was almost a full 180 from the ferocious live energy of their debut; a studio album with a thoroughly different, edgier kind of energy that reads almost as a dissertation on the history of rock and roll up to that point. A little-heard but solid third album, High Times, appeared in 1971 even as the band was on the verge of total collapse. The MC5 played their final show on December 31 of that year at the Grande Ballroom.

 

Instead of declining in stature, the MC5 grew larger after their demise, as hundreds of musicians and critics acknowledged the scope of their influence. Drummer Thompson disappeared from view after the band's breakup, but all the other members continued to make music. Bassist Davis joined the Detroit cult band Destroy All Monsters (which has recently been revived) with former Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton. Guitarist Smith formed a Detroit cult band of his own, Sonic's Rendezvous Band with Asheton's brother and fellow ex-Stooge, drummer Scott, and Rationals guitarist/vocalist Scott Morgan. He later married Patti Smith and played on her 1986 album Dream of Life. He died of heart failure in 1994. Vocalist Tyner also died of heart failure in 1991, just after releasing a solo album. He spent much of his post-MC5 career fronting The Rob Tyner Band.

 

Wayne Kramer's post-MC5 years were extraordinarily turbulent, involving serious heroin addiction and a few years spent in jail for dealing cocaine, but today he is the most active and visible of the group's living members. In 1995, he released his first solo album, The Hard Stuff (Epitaph), serving notice to the world that he was still able to summon the furious soul-punk power of the MC5 days. He's released a number of records since and even founded his own label, Muscle Tone Records, on which he released his 2002 album Adult World.

 

In 1983, just a few years out of jail, Kramer assembled the cassette-only collection Babes in Arms for the great punk label ROIR from his own private tapes. It was one of the most popular ROIR releases ever and sold out in a heartbeat, but it has since been remastered for CD and is available domestically once again. The release features rare B-sides, rehearsal tapes, and outtakes from each of the band's three proper albums. Spanning the years 1966-1971, it's a great introduction to the incredible rock and roll phenomenon that was the MC5.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"...KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKER!"

 

weren't they lester bangs's favourite band or something? i'm racking my brain trying to remember all the useless things i know. :lol:

 

truly essential music though, especially with all the wack impersonators coming out these days pretending like they invented it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...